East Coast Earthquake May Produce Aftershocks for Weeks

Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The 5.8-magnitude earthquake that
surprised the U.S. East Coast with the biggest shake since 1988
may be followed by aftershocks for weeks, scientists said.

A 4.2-magnitude followup struck about six hours after the
main temblor yesterday. While serious damage from the
aftershocks is unlikely, “you could get a pretty good jolt,”
Jack Boatwright, a U.S. Geological Survey seismologist in Menlo
Park, California, said in a telephone interview.

The earthquake was the biggest in the East since a 5.9-magnitude tremor in Saguenay, Quebec, 22 years ago. It struck
about 90 miles (144 kilometers) southwest of Washington. It
prompted evacuation of landmarks such as the Lincoln Memorial
and halted traffic in New York’s Holland Tunnel.

The quake struck at 1:51 p.m., near Mineral, Virginia, the
survey said on its website. The shock was felt as far west as
Columbus, Ohio, and as far north as Toronto. It was the
strongest to hit the Virginia area since 1897, according to USGS
data.

“All of a sudden I feel the table shaking,” Brian Loebig
said by telephone from Chesterfield, outside Richmond. “I was
doing laundry, so I thought maybe the spin cycle had got out of
whack. It would have had to have been incredibly out of whack.
It was maybe two minutes. The dog was going crazy.”

Jessica Abernethy, 22, of Rixeyville, was feeding her 3-year-old son when the house shook.

Nuclear Plant Shuts

“I’ve never experienced an earthquake,” Abernethy said in
an interview. “I thought my father had hit the house with the
tractor.”

About seven miles from the epicenter, Dominion Resources
Inc.’s North Anna nuclear-power plant safely shut down its
reactors, the company said in a statement. Off-site power has
been restored, eliminating the need to rely on back-up
generators, and the station remains on alert, the second-lowest
of the four emergency classifications of the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, according to a later statement.

A magnitude-9 earthquake near the coast of Japan in March
produced a tsunami that knocked out cooling at the Fukushima
Dai-Ichi plant north of Tokyo, causing three reactor meltdowns,
in the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.

More than 20,000 people are dead or missing from the quake
and tsunami. A magnitude-9 earthquake is about 63,000 times
stronger than a 5.8 quake, according to the USGS.

Rattled Refrigerator

“We’re all just scared to death,” said Pam Harlowe, mayor
of Mineral, a community with a population of about 430. The
shock broke drywall at a school, dumped food into the aisles of
grocery stores and knocked pictures off the walls of her house,
Harlowe said by telephone.

“It sounded like an aircraft crashing into our house,”
said Cathie Stewart, 21, a college student at home in Mineral
with her father when the quake struck.

“It was rumbling so bad, it was like treading water,”
said Tamara Grindheim, 53, who described bookcases falling over
in her home and food rattling in the refrigerator.

Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell said he was working with
federal, state and local agencies to assess the situation.

“All resources of the commonwealth have been put on alert
to assist in any way necessary,” he said in a statement.

The quake occurred as residents of Mid-Atlantic states
prepared for Hurricane Irene, which is forecast to hit the North
Carolina coast this weekend.

Flights Delayed

Airline flights were delayed across the northeastern U.S.
after the Federal Aviation Administration halted some operations
at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City,
Newark Liberty International in New Jersey and Washington’s
Reagan National Airport. Control towers at Kennedy and Newark
were evacuated.

The Holland Tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey
reopened after closing for about 30 minutes for inspection, said
Ron Marsico, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and
New Jersey, which operates the tunnel.

Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel
Corp. experienced a surge in phone calls and said they had no
immediate reports of network damage.

In downtown Washington, jarred workers, unused to such
temblors, gathered on street corners. The National Cathedral
sustained “significant damage” to its central tower, said
Richard Weinberg, a spokesman for the cathedral. Stones fell
from three of four pinnacles, he said by telephone.

“I thought, ‘I just better get out of here,’” said Alex
Vasquez, 25, whose 10th-floor office near the White House shook.
He said he assumed it was a construction accident until he spoke
with others fleeing the building.

‘Very Unusual’

“It’s very unusual for an earthquake of this size on the
East Coast,” said Thomas Hillman Jordan, director of the
Southern California Earthquake Center at the University of
Southern California in Los Angeles. “It’s a moderate-size
earthquake, and on the East Coast they tend to be felt over a
much larger area.”

“This is a good reminder that even on the East Coast you
want to be prepared,” he said in a telephone interview.

Amtrak service was disrupted after Washington’s Union
Station was evacuated, said Steve Kulm, a spokesman. The
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority slowed all its
trains to 15 miles an hour.

Some New York courthouses were evacuated, as was City Hall.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. cut short a press
briefing on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case when the quake hit.

Offices Emptied

“We have so far no reports of any damage any place and
let’s just hope that nobody got injured or killed,” New York
City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in an interview outside City
Hall after it was evacuated. The mayor is founder and majority
owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.

In Trenton, New Jersey, the state Capitol shook for about a
minute and offices emptied as those in the building rushed into
hallways. The New Jersey Office of Emergency Management said
there were few reports of damage.

In the Philadelphia area, where windows rattled and tall
buildings swayed, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent
inspectors to power plants and declared an “unusual event,”
the lowest of NRC emergency classifications, said Diane Screnci,
an agency spokeswoman in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.

The Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial were closed
while engineers checked for damage, according to U.S. Park
Police Sergeant David Schlosser.

Jim Maring of Middleville, Michigan, was nearing the end of
a tour in the White House with his wife and three children when
the floor started to shake.

“I thought, well our tour is now over,” said Maring, 40.

“The Secret Service and armed guards started telling us to
leave, firmly,” said his wife, Barbara, 42, who at first feared
it was a bomb. “Our kids won’t ever forget that experience.”